#oggstreamer – OggStreamer @ LiWoLi 2012 (Linux Week Linz)

I have the chance to give a short presentation of the OggStreamer at the Linux Week Linz on Friday 25.5. So if you are interested and want to drop by I’ll give a 20-minutes short presentation around 18h30 at the “Stadtwerkstatt Saal”.

It is a great event, offering a number of interesting topics – you can check out the LiWoLi 2012 Program here.

#oggstreamer – 24h Streaming Test

Some days ago I installed the first OggStreamer at the Remotestudio of the FRS – “Free Radio Salzkammergut” – the regional Radio. And I put the OggStreamer to stream for 24 hours non-stop – and it worked without interruption. So I think  the next Live-Emission from the Remotestudio can be done using this Setup rather than the temporary Laptop-Setup they have used before.

Another OggStreamer shipped to Switzerland yesterday and it should arrive there early next week – I am quite curious how their reaction on this device will be.

The next OggStreamers from the first batch are already in the making -  the list of customers receiving a device form the first batch is already defined. Currently I am evaluating possibilities to start another production run of maybe around 30 Devices.  But before thinking that far – The device first has to pass the necessary EMC Compliance Tests …

Another issue what bothers me a little is the delivery time of XPortPro’s – I ordered 4 pcs. of them in the beginning of march and they are expected to be delivered in CW 21 – I am anyhow busy till CW 21 so nothing to worry about, but nevertheless it is quite a bit of time for such a small number.

By the way thanks to David Schleef for putting me on his website and on Planet GNOME – This blog received quite a number of hits via their websites.

#oggstreamer – jlGuiApplet replaces ffmp3

Sorry to say – but I’ve dropped support for ffmp3 – the main reason for this is that flash only processes audio at 44100Hz so streaming ogg and listening with ffmp3 wasn’t possible at 48000Hz (it was just play-backed at 44100Hz). So I needed another solution for this. Its name jlGuiApplet which implements an Winamp-style Ogg/MP3-Player as a Java-Applet and supports the 48000Hz sampling-rate as well. This software is almost 5 years old but it does the job.

As you can see on the ssh-terminal running on the XportPro – streaming  to 1 client produces around 1% CPU-Load at 128kbps. Also note that we are using more than 8,5 Megabytes of RAM, which means that older XPortPros with just 8Megabytes in RAM total, won’t be able to run the full OggStreamer-Software including the builtin sighttpd streaming-Server.

#oggstreamer – pictures of completed device

Mechanics and Electronics are completed (we will see what story emc-compliance testing will tell), but for now the “Hardware” is ready. The last piece to add to this puzzle was a countersunk-headed screw that holds the cinch-connector in place. I got the screw samples from Bossard – thank you.

Here some pictures:

#oggstreamer – Rev1.0b Gerberfiles published

The Rev1.0b PCBs look like the are working as they should – So it is time to publish the Gerberfiles as well, they are put in the pcb-design Repository of this project on Sourceforge. These files are licensed under CC SA-BY 3.0 and there is no warranty or liability or whatsoever.

Note that the some values of Rs and Cs already have changed (see Ticket #46) – these changes are reflected in the current Stückliste (partslist) but they are not reflected in the current Rev1.0b schematics neither in the BOM.

And be aware: It is most likely that some more adjustments around the OPA is going to happen. – and maybe I will flag the Output-Stage as optional.

#oggstreamer – Protocol defined for XPortPro => STM8 Communication

The firmware of the STM8 needed some enhancement in order to provide more controlling options for vorbis quality-settings and samplerate. I decided to implement a simple one-byte protocol. The specification for the protocol can be found on the wiki.

I also implemented the protocol today and now the STM8-Firmware can be  considered something like RC1

#oggstreamer – 12 Frontpanels produced

This morning I fetched the cnc-punched alu-cases from Johann, who did a great job concerning the mechanical work. Building the frontpanel, involves two main tasks:

1. deflashing of the punched holes
2. gluing the LED-PCB on the backside of the Frontpanel.

For the 2nd task I am using a transparent hot glue. In order to get a nice and plane look I put the Frontpanels on a glas plate first, mount them together with some handy little tools i don’t know the name of – then I quickly cover all the LED holes with plenty of hot glue (be sure the hotglue-gun is well heated) and in time I press the LED-PCB into the still liquid hot glue – after that I put the glasplate and frontplate into the freezer (-18 °C) for just 5 Minutes, which proved out to be a good number for descent results. It turned out that the results are better if I just swift of the glasplate (instead of using Spiritus), because if the hotglue doesn’t stick to well on the glass the frontpanel comes of more easy. If the finish of the so created light-guides doesn’t look smooth it  can be reworked it with a hotair-gun, (but not to long)

Before trying this “hot glue”-technique, I was considering 3D printing the Lightguids with transparent PLA. But I think the hot glue-result is way better than I could print it our Prusa Mendel – Printing a plastic by layers also might have some effects on diffusion. Also the meltingpoint of the used hotglue (200 °C) is siginficantly higher than PLA (130 °C)